Death of a Hired Man

by Eric Wright

He sipped his coffee and smiled. “Remember me? I remember you.”

  “I do now. You’re the policeman who was in before, asking about Norbert.”

  Norbert. She called him Norbert. Somehow he had missed that before, and now it was almost all he needed to know, with a woman like this, anyway.

  “That’s right. I just wanted to pick up where we left off. I’ve talked to a lot of people since I saw you last. He was a nice guy, they say. You’ve got good taste.”

  She colored, and her hands went up to protect her bosom.

  Copps ignored the sign of her fear. “He was lucky to find you. How did you get together? I mean, he was very shy, they say …” He paused, watching the expression of doubt and worry cross her face as she wondered if she had revealed too much to him the last time they spoke. Then she nodded. “Yes, he was. For a grown man, he was. Very shy.”

  “You are, too. Did it take a long time to trust him?”

  Again he watched her perplexity as she tried to decide if she was becoming too confidential with Copps. Cautiously, she answered, “Not so long. I knew he was okay from the beginning.”

  “Were you kind of … engaged?”

  It took a long pause, then she reddened, her secret out, but proud of it. “Kind of. We were going to be married.”

  “Yeah? When did you get together? No one around here knew he had a girlfriend.”

  She straightened up. “I don’t think that’s your business. Why’re you asking?”

  This had taken so long to come that he was completely ready for it. “Jealousy,” he said. “And money. We think about motives, see. Jealousy and money are the two big reasons why people kill each other. He didn’t have any money, so I figure it must have been jealousy. Somebody was jealous of him, or maybe of you. You, probably. Someone didn’t like you seeing him. Someone from around here, because that’s the only place you could ever have been seen together, right?”

  “We were never seen together.”

  “Huh? How did that work?”

  “We were never seen together.”

  “Never is a big word. How’d you manage that?”

  “We got together after I closed this place. Seven o’clock Saturday nights. The Laundromat was still open, but I closed the counter.”

  “Where did you go then?”

  “Upstairs. He took my keys and let himself in the back door and I met him upstairs.”

  “What’s up there?”

  “My apartment.”

  “That right? How long did he stay? I mean, what time did he leave? I’m wondering who could have seen him.”

  “I don’t know why anyone would connect him with me. There’re four apartments up there, and three other stores in the block. He could’ve been coming from any of them.”

  “Why did you have to be so careful?”

  “He wanted it that way. On account of the people he worked for, I think. So did I.”

  “Somebody guessed, though. Somebody killed him. I mean, we know he didn’t have any money. So what else could it be?”

  “He had money.”

  “What?” Copps affected a small surprise.

  “He had money.”

  “How do you mean? A lot of money? In the bank?”

  “It was in the bank, but not in his name. I’ve been listening to you, what you’ve been saying. Nobody was jealous of either of us, me or Norbert. I never let anyone take a shine to me in Sweetwater before. I don’t know about Norbert, but I’m sure there was nothing to be jealous about. I was the only lady he was ever with here. That I know. So it must have been the money. Someone figured out he had a lot of money saved and killed him to get it.” She shuddered now, her misery surfacing; her mouth opened and a single quiet wail came out as she turned her head away.

  Copps was not sorry to see her misery. Until this moment, she had been too composed for someone whose lover had been recently murdered, suggesting that her emotional world might be awry. Now, though, for Copps, her wretchedness put her back in the world of ordinary people, people with reactions you could understand. A little eccentric perhaps, and certainly not one of his types, but more normal than not.

  “Hey,” he said gently. “Hey, hey. How’d it be if we went over there for a cup of coffee? Close up now. Let’s go over there.” He pointed to the restaurant across the street.

  She sniffled, nodding. “We could go up to my apartment,” she offered. “Have a beer.”

  “Let’s go to the Chat’n’Chew.”

  “It’s the Chew’n’Chat,” she said, trying for a smile. “Lot of people get it wrong.”

  “Whatever. Let’s go over and have a little of each.”

  15

  “At first we just talked,” she said. “You know, we had a cup of coffee before he drove back to the farm. It went on from there.”

  They were sitting in Wilkie’s office with the door closed—Wilkie, Copps, and Linda Perry, the Laundromat operator. Copps sat close to her, across the desk from Wilkie.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked, looking back and forth between the two men.

  Wilkie opened his mouth, but Copps spoke first. “Tell us the whole story, Linda. What happened the first time? Why did you go up to your place the first time?”

  Wilkie stood up and walked to the window.

  “We were talking one Saturday night. He came in every Saturday, and I’d got used to him by then, and started to look forward to him coming in. That was about the time I offered to iron his shirts, save him a few dollars.”

  “How long ago was this?” Copps asked.

  “Two years. A bit more. I had come to Sweetwater only a few weeks before that, when I heard about the job. It was so nice to have something steady, and my own place to stay in. I was a waitress in Lindsay and I lived in a rooming house, and when I lost the job, it was hard to find another one.”

  “Why did you lose the job?”

  “They said I bothered the customers. Said I came on too strong. I was just trying to be nice, make them welcome.”

  “Are you married, Linda?”

  “I think I am.” She giggled, then flashed out one of her electric smiles. “He left me, though. Just walked out. I didn’t know where to look for him. Someone said they saw him in Barrie, but I don’t know.”

  “You have any family?”

  “No. I can’t have children.”

  “I meant, you know, brothers, sisters, like that.”

  “My mother lives out on the West Coast with a Japanese carpenter. She doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’m her only child, but she doesn’t want me hanging around. She sends me a few dollars sometimes. I never knew who my dad was.”

  “So every Saturday night, Norbert Thompson brought you his laundry, and pretty soon you were acquainted. Right?”

  “Right. I’d close up the counter and meet him upstairs, for coffee at first. Then, later on, we became lovers.” She brandished the word a little, almost coquettishly, liking the sound of it. “I told you all this.”

  “I wanted my sergeant to hear it. You’re being a lot of help to us. Were you lovers for the whole two years, then?”

  “Pretty well. I didn’t have it in mind at first, but I guess he did. Men!” She chuckled, shaking her head, taking her place in the great world of women who are tolerant of men’s needs, proud to have a man she could shake her head about.

  “I guess he did. And then … afterward?”

  “He went home.”

  “No, just before he left.”

  “Oh, right. Yes, he gave me fifty dollars.”

  “Why?”

  “Why fifty? He said that’s what it cost him in New Brunswick.”

  “But Linda, you’re not a hooker, are you?”

  “No way. I’ve never taken money from a man before. I never had a man before, like this, not my husband, like.”

  “Why did you this time? Were you broke?”

  “He made me. Said he always expected to pay, and the money was owing to me. In the end, I took it bec
ause I was afraid he wouldn’t come back if I didn’t. And then, pretty soon, we made a sort of joke of it.”

  “Must have helped you out. Fifty.”

  “I took it, but I didn’t spend it. I’m not a prostitute. It was a game. We pretended I was and that he was paying, but I didn’t spend the money.”

  “Then what did you do with it?”

  “I saved it for him. For us.”

  Copps took a bankbook out of his pocket and handed it over to Wilkie. “Special account,” he said.

  Wilkie checked the total. “What were you saving for?”

  “We were going to get married, go live on the farm. I was saving to buy the new things we would need.”

  “You mean the Maguire farm?”

  She nodded. “When Norbert’s brother died, we figured to get married and move to the farm.”

  “Kick out Mrs. Maguire?”

  “No, she could stay. Half the farm belonged to her.”

  “Only half?”

  “Norbert’s brother told him that because of all the time he’d put in, looking after the farm and him too, he was leaving half the farm to Norbert. We were waiting for that. But there wasn’t any will. So all we had was the money I’d saved, the money from Norbert.”

  “Did he know about it from the beginning?”

  “Not right at first. But after I told him, he thought it was cute, called it a dowry, which is what it could have been. But he still insisted on giving it to me every week. He called it a joint account, but it was just in my name.”

  Copps stepped quickly to the door to speak to someone outside, and to get himself a drink of water. When he returned and had composed himself, he said, “When Norbert left the farm and moved into the cabin in Larch River, why didn’t you ‘walk out’ together?”

  “I wanted to, but he said he’d been advised to keep our relationship quiet for a while, something to do with his rights. So we carried on as before.”

  “The idea was that you and he would run the farm now. But he didn’t know about Mrs. Maguire’s boyfriend, did he?”

  “He had no idea. It was a real shock.”

  Wilkie and Copps exchanged signals, and Copps took Linda’s hand, patting it. “I think that’s all we need, Linda. You’ve been very cooperative. Mind if I say something? I think Norbert Thompson was a very lucky guy.”

  “He’s dead now, though, isn’t he? But I wasn’t doing anything wrong, was I? Not these days. And I didn’t keep the money.”

  “You made the guy happy. Gave him something to look forward to. I mean all the plans you must have talked about. He’s gone, sure, but a lot of people never get what you two had.”

  There was another smile. “He was a nice man. So what about the money? I reckon I should still get half, don’t you?”

  “The money’s yours. All of it. Keep it. There’s just three of us here who know about it, and two of us think the money belongs to you. Okay? It’s your money.”

  “Okay, then. If you think so. After all, Mrs. Maguire wasn’t very good to him, was she? I was. We was a good pair.” She stood up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to work.” She opened the bankbook. “I could maybe buy the Laundromat.”

  “Take your time.”

  Wilkie turned now. “Who was it advised Norbert about not being seen with you, after he left the farm?”

  “A lawyer.”

  “Here, in Sweetwater?”

  “I think so. Yes, I’m sure. Norbert saw him on Saturday mornings a couple of times. I don’t know his name.”

  “Thanks, Linda. You’ve been a lot of help.”

  When she had gone, Wilkie said, “I thought she’d be grieving. Crying.”

  Copps said, “She was crying in the Laundromat. She’s kind of excited. She’s a little bit unstable, on a roller coaster. She could lose it completely. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Be careful. She could transfer—is that the right word?—over to you pretty easy, you keep stroking her like that.”

  Copps said, “That’s a shitty thing to say, you know that? I just wanted her to feel good about herself. She’s had a fuck of a life except for this little bit of time with Thompson.”

  “Sorry. What do you think Thompson was up to?”

  Copps said, “At first, he found himself a fifty-dollar woman. Then it’s hard to say what happened, because we weren’t there. Could have been the way she sees it, that he thought it was cute to keep giving her fifty dollars to save up for their wedding.”

  “Or?”

  “Or he was being smart, or he got some advice to make sure she didn’t have a claim on him.”

  “That’s what I wondered. Kind of ugly, isn’t it? But why else would he have been advised to keep Linda out of sight after Maguire died?”

  “I can think of two or three reasons. My guess would be that the lawyer anticipated that one day it would be important to establish Norbert Thompson’s good character, as they say.”

  Wilkie nodded. “Villiers told me that Thompson had been asking about lawyers. Time I followed that up, don’t you think?”

  In the first two seconds, Pickett wondered if he had failed to find his target. Gruber’s face assumed a look of aggressive outrage as he planned to deny whatever Pickett wanted him for.

  “Connie Gruber?” Pickett repeated.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No, I don’t fucking know. Some asshole comes up, tells me a name. How do I know who he is?”

  “You know who you are?”

  “Fucking right.”

  “Connie Gruber.”

  “Fucking right. So?”

  “And you know who I am?”

  “I told you. No. Yes. You stink like a cop, that’s for sure.”

  “That’s right. Sometimes I live in a cabin up in Larch River, but right now I’m assisting the OPP in their inquiries into the discovery of a body that was found in that cabin. The body of a man. Murdered.”

  Now he had scored a hit. “So?” Gruber said. “Who gives a fuck? I mean, where’s Larch River? What are you talking about?”

  Pickett waited for Gruber to sort his head out. “You remember Larch River,” he said. “North of Lindsay. You were up there last weekend.”

  Now he watched Gruber decide on the minimum he had better admit, and how he could blend it into his response. “Oh, right,” Gruber said. “I was driving around last weekend, sure. I’m looking to build a cottage up around Sweetwater. Larch River? I don’t remember. I could’ve gone through it. Small town? Near a lake? Yeah. I think I passed through it.”

  “Guy was murdered in my cabin last weekend there. You’ve been identified in the area.”

  “I said I was there. But I don’t kill people, mister. Ask your pals.”

  “I will. There’s always a first time, though. For a drug dealer and a biker bumboy with a record.”

  “That’s it, eh? Pin it on any poor fucker with a record.”

  “If he’s found in the area, he has to say why, doesn’t he? You know the rules.”

  “I told you, I was looking for a cabin.”

  “A cottage, you said.”

  “Cottage, cabin, what’s the difference? Listen, are you arresting me?”

  “I don’t have the jurisdiction. It’s the OPP who’ll want to answer that one. No, I’m not arresting you. But I am going to tell the OPP where to find you. They have to be curious about what a character like you was doing in Larch River the night a guy is killed in a cabin, don’t they?”

  “You playing some kind of game?”

  “I’m serious. A guy was killed in my cabin. I’d like to help find out who did it, sort of purge the cabin.”

  “So what next?”

  “What I do now is call the OPP in Sweetwater, now you’ve told me you were up there, and they’ll come and find you. Where are you staying?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Don’t be an asshole. If they want you, they’ll fin
d you in ten minutes. But there’s something I don’t get about you and me and this. Did I ever collar you?”

  “Not in my recollection.”

  “Nor in mine. So there’s a story here. Want to tell me?”

  “There’s no story. I went up north to look for a place to build a cabin.”

  “Why Larch River? It isn’t very pretty, is it?”

  Pickett wanted Gruber to say that he had overheard the people in the Bail-and-Parole Unit mention it, maybe overheard them kidding around about how their old colleague, a guy named Pickett, had built a cabin up there, and so, hearing about Pickett’s cabin, he had driven up there to look. That would have been okay. That was the story he wanted to believe. But Gruber wasn’t saying that, so there was a worry about a little gap that wasn’t accounted for.

  “I told you, for fuck’s sake,” Gruber protested.

  “Sorry, Connie. It’s too big a coincidence. They have to check it out. And you. Tick you off their list”

  “What do you mean, check it out?”

  Now Pickett concluded an idea he had been playing with ever since he had had Gruber pointed out to him by the undercover man. A small gamble, based on the feeling he had that Gruber had come to Larch River looking for him and could have thought he had found him when he found Norbert Thompson; but there was no reason in the world for Gruber to kill Pickett/Thompson; you had to know why Gruber had gone to Larch River in the first place.

  Could Gruber have heard that Pickett was rich? Had gossip he’d overheard in the lineup in the Bail-and-Parole Unit turned Charlotte into a rich widow whom Pickett had married? Even if that were the case, only an inexperienced fool would set out to assault a former policeman for his money, and while Gruber was obviously as stupid as most thugs of his type, he wasn’t a fool in the street sense, and he wasn’t totally new to crime. He would avoid all cops, active or retired.

  Therefore, Pickett decided to throw a little reassurance at Gruber, get him to relax while they found out what he was up to. If Gruber decided to leave town now, it might be hard to trail him, even though Pickett had assured him they would. At the same time, he couldn’t literally hold him at this point without some help, and he could not involve the undercover man. Catching Gruber would have to wait for tomorrow. Of course he ought not to have come this far without telling Wilkie, but he had thought he would recognize Gruber, see the connection between them, and call for help. Now he would have to tickle him until they had the net ready.